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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Three different types of light switches.

Here we have an example of three different kinds of light switches. All three are decora or rocker style light switches. This type of switch is almost universal in UK, Ireland, Hong Kong, Singapore and India. In the US it is more common in newer construction, Kitchens and bathrooms. The rocker/decora style allow for a great verity of switching functions then the more common togglestyle

The far left switch is a digital timer switch. It holds a LCD display with the time and a simple programming function. This switch can be set to turn the lights off and on at different times.

The middle switch is a slide dimmer. The switch is at the bottom and the top bar slides up and down changing the light levels.

The far right is your basic single pole light switch. Push the rocker in at the top for "on" and the bottom for "off".

Here is a closer look at the digital timer. The control door is open here. The six buttons are there to set the programming. It work much like a digital wrist watch or a VCR. The whiter square at the bottom is for the batteries. It works off of 3 watch style button batteries.

This is the back of the timer switch. The load is limited to 400Watts. These timers tend to be finicky. We prefer to keep the load on the closer to 300Watts. Digital timer do have a tendency to not last as long as we like.

Here is a look inside the switch box. The switches were installed as part of a house flip. The new home owner did not realize how old the wiring was behind the walls. There were a bunch of new wires added to these older circuits. This can tax an older electrical system. We recommend replacing wire that are cloth covered. These wires are 60 years old and cloth just doesn't last that long without dry rotting.